Tuesday, July 31, 2007

I am preparing for the cruise, and more in particular, the knitting part of the cruise. The days we are at sea, we will have knitting workshops, taught by Merike Saarnit. We've received a list with materials. That seems the most important part to be packing, forget about pasports, and formal dresses - Did I bring my knitting ?

Workshop 1 : we will be knitting some Estonian lace in linen yarn, suggestion was to bring Louets euroflax. Now, although this yarn is supposedly spun in Belgium, I cannot get it over here. I do have however some very nice linen yarn in my stash, bought in Stockholm in september 2006. It seems appropriate to bring it back where it came from, and knit something 'Scandinavian' out of it.

Homework : wind this into a centerpul ball. I always wind the 'canonball' style, so this was a first for me. The wonders of the internet - somebody actually put a video on you-tube where she demonstrates this !

Saturday, July 28, 2007

As I told on a previous post, I will be taking a knitting cruise this summer, visiting the Scandinavian capitals. Iron man told me he would not have time to take a holiday with me, so I decided to go on my own, and do something that interests me. It was not the cruise thing that attracted me, but now I am getting curious to see how it works out. The dressing up part is not my kind of fun, but of course it will be great people watching.

I mailed on several lists and my blog if anybody wanted to meet up. Hanna in Helsinki offered to show me around. I am really looking forward to that. It looks like we will be able to do some serious yarn shopping. Where-ever I travel, I like to buy some local yarn. Hanna sent me several links to Finnish yarn companies. I really likethese mittens by 'Pirkanmaa' yarn company'(hope I spelled that right).*edited : I seem not be able to link to the right page. Look under 'english' and 'knitting kits' and you will find some beautifull mittens ! And I also like it when people show me their favorite spots in their home town.

My itenerary will be as follows :august 2d - Kopenhagenat seaaugust 4th - Tallinnaugust 5-6 - St-Petersburgaugust 7 - Helsinkiaugust 8 - Stockholmat seaaugust 10 - Aarhusaugust 11 - Osloaugust 12 - KopenhagenSo if there are other knitters who want to meet up, leave a comment before august 2d! I have been to Stockholm, Kopenhagen and Aarhus before, and know that there are great yarn opportunities !

In the meantime - OndertussenI finished the travelling companion socks. Yarn is merino sock yarn bynightshade rose, and it was a gift from my secretpal 9.

It is a very fine sock yarn (compared to my regular Annell sock yarn). Usually I knit a sock on 60 stitches, this time I needed 80 stitches. That's why it took some time before these socks got finished. That, and the Mystery Stole 3 of course !

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

This is my progress on my Mystery Stole 3 so far. For me knitting on a Mystery Stole has been a summer tradition the last 3 years. I started on the Mystery stole 1 (Leda's dream) as a novice lace knitter. Apart from a lace cuff on a sock, I was a lace virgin. So the mystery stole 1 was the most difficult. Partly because I was a beginning lace knitter, and partly because you had to combine instructions from different charts. I am sorry I cannot show you a picture of the finished object, I gave it away as a gift and have never seen it since.

I would consider myself a intermediate lace knitter now. On MS3 I finished row 287 (with the lifeline) last night. Taking a look back - I noticed an error way down at the end of clue 3, you have this 2d 'inverted V'. I used a left leaning decrease instead of a right leaning decrease. Result is that the V doesn't close properly. I pointed this out to my DH, but to him it was like I was talking chinese. It's not a big error, everything is lining up properly. I am sure nobody will see it when I wear the stole. I am not discouraged, merely slightly annoyed. I am not advanced yet to ladder down (especially not on the centre stitch with all the double decreases). On top of that, I use a yarn that's doesn't like tinking, because it splits very easily (Schachenmayr Rheuma wolle). I am anxious to see what the next clue will look like, but am leaving on a (knitting) trip next thursday, and no way I will be able to donwload the file next friday. I hope to be able to do that somewhere on my trip, but not sure yet. More about the trip tomorrow !

Turn out this region in Germany (Niedersachsen) was sheep 'infested', so to speak. We were in the southern part of Niedersachsen, in a small town called Bodenteich.In that region you have a lot of heath (moorland), and flocks of sheep. They have their own breed of sheep - the 'heidschnucken'. It's a sheep that descends from the Corsican mouflon sheep.

Of course I was curious if I could find yarn of this type of sheep. Didn't find any, probably because the wool of the 'heidschnucken' is very coarse. I bought some other German yarn - 'albwolle' in natural cream color. In the shop where I bought the yarn, they had one fleece of heidschnucken. I am not a spinner, but I noticed it had 2 layers - a finer undercoat, and very coarse outer layer. The 'albwolle' was also spun in Niedersachsen, but the wool came from a more southern part of Germany (schwäbische alp). Maybe there are local spinners around, but I didn't have the time to go exploring - I was there to support the Iron man. And I had 'roast of heidschnucken' for supper !

(Dominique says - I thought he deserved a blogpost devoted to this accomplishment. I know this is a knitting blog, but am sure my readers would understand -more about our trip to Germany knittingwise in a next post !)

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

That's it. My husband has swam, biked and ran enough to start his triatlon. He choose an event in Germany, this weekend. I will accompany him for moral support, everything else he has to do on his own.Knittingwise, I am stalled on the mystery stole project. That's good news actually, I have found a way to read and follow the chart easily. This means when a clue comes out, I can finish it in the next 2 days. I don't know if I will have internet access where we are going, so I am looking to take a small, but interesting project.

Jane in Texas was so kind to send me 2 balls of Noro silk garden lite, and I found the perfect project for it :) - the Argosy scarf. Don't you love these fresh, springy colors ? Looks like a very versatile pattern, that can grow into a wrap or even a blanket. I'll stick to the scarf version.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

We are back from a short stay in France. We started out in a chateau in the Loire region, but because of the cloudy/rainy weather, and because my husband needed some good roads to practice his biking/running we went to the seaside.We ended up in a little seaside resort at the atlantic ocean, called Pornic. I managed to go to the Phildar shop in Angers and got some Phil'bambou to knit a baby sweater, but that was about it regarding yarn purchases. I didn't make it into Nantes, so no La Droguerie visit. In Pornic there was also a Bergère de France shop, but I have one in my home town, so why buy that abroad ? I enjoyed the views, and knitted the same 3 rows on my Mystery stole again and again.I discovered what's not to like about the Rheuma yarn - it splits terribly when you have to unknit !When I got home, I found the final package from my SP10. Yarn, tea, chocolate, a magazine and stitch markers. Thanks a lot Karin ! The yarn is a very nice blend : 30% alpaca, 65% merino, and 5% PA (that's what she writes on the card). Anybody knows what PA stands for ? It's a nice cream color, with black hairs sticking out. I'll just have to find a nice project for it. Maybe another MS3 ? I just want to find out how this one is turning out, before I decide.I am home for a few days now, and then we leave for Germany, where my husband hopefully will be able to finish his triathlon project.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

I will be in France for the next week or so (not sure yet when we will come back). We are heading for the Loire region (near Angers). Of course I checked stash enhancement possibilities on my trip. Phildar is everywhere in France. They have this cool tool on their website, that makes you select a yarn, and look up what patterns are knitted in that yarn. Because of my shoulder problems, I don't want to start a big project right now. But a cute baby sweater in phil'bambou (bamboo yarn) or phil'thalassa (cotton+seacell) might be nice. Lots of phildar yarns are blends, but these are both 100% natural ... I swatched the bamboo (got a ball on my previous trip to France). It's very soft, but rather heavy. I think you need a flowey, drapy kind of garment, or knit it on tiny needle. The Phil'thalassa felt very nice, but I didn't swatch it - sent it to the USA in a swap. It comes in variegated colors, and might make nice facecloths.

And I just found out that La Droguerie has a shop in Nantes, only 70kms from where we will be in France. I don't know if I can persuade DH to drive 70kms just to visit a yarn shop. I hope I can find something about Nantes that makes it a worthwile detour !

I haven't managed to finish the mystery stole clue 1 before I leave. I am on row 78 now (out of 99). I don't know if this is a good project to take on holiday, you need to stay focused. I guess I will just take some socks as a knitting project with me.